Dar es Salaam is the principal port of Tanzania and the main gateway not only to Tanzania's hinterland and the Great Lakes region but also plays a major role in being a gateway into the neighbouring states of Burundi, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi and the eastern DRC. In total the port handling about 95 percent of the country's international trade.

The port is connected with these regions by road and by rail. The rail corridors include a rail service to the Tanzanian lake port of Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika, another to Tanzania's port of Mwanza on Lake Victoria, and a third to Zambia, the DRC and Zimbabwe via the TAZARA railway system.

The port of Dar es Salaam consists of 11 berths with a total length of over 2,000 metres. The terminals are partially privatised. The design capacity of the port is said to be 3.1 million tons of general cargo, 6 million tons of liquid bulk cargo, and 1 million tons of containerised cargo but efforts are underway to increase the various capacities.

In the fiscal year 2012/13 the port of Dar es Salaam handled a total of 12.531 million tons of cargo (all products) from a total of 13.713mt of cargo handled by all Tanzanian ports including those on the lakes. A total of 1,366 ship calls were made at Dar es Salaam (24.860mt gross tonnage).

Cargo recorded at all Tanzanian ports in fiscal year 2012/13

PORT

Volume handled in tons

Dar es Salaam

12,530,675

Tanga

457,537

Mtwara

203,644

Kilwa, Lindi & Mafia

49,148

Mwanza

360,891

Kigoma

81,880

Kyela

29,614

Total all ports

13,713,389 million tons

Tanzania relies to a large extent on water-borne passenger traffic, including ferries that operate between the offshore islands as well as passenger traffic on the lakes. In 2012/13 Dar es Salaam recorded 707,286 passenger embarkations and 666,860 disembarkations. In total Tanzania had 927,960 passengers embark and 876,561 disembark at the ports of Dar es Salaam, Tanga, Mwanza, Kigoma and Kyela.

Marine Craft: The Port of Dar es Salaam has the following marine craft: